Opinion & Perspectives
26 July, 2026
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Shopping local and supply issues
Want to have your say? Email is at news@ncnherald.com.au
Should support local
CONGRATULATIONS to editor NCN for calling out the gross lack of understanding for local councils to support local businesses and rate payers.
The statement by Northern Grampians CEO Brent McAlistar to trot out the old local response chestnut that council has an obligation to minimize operational costs. The question is: ‘Should this come out of costs of losing local businesses?’ It is unbelievable to think of St Arnaud without the business ability and service and community support without Weirs and other traders.
Wake up Northern Grampians Shire it is important to put your spending power back into the local rate payers who provide the funds for council to operate.
Graeme Harris, Donald
Community resilience amid supply challenges
RECENT geopolitical tensions highlight how dependent modern societies are on fragile global supply chains.
While governments actively strengthen fuel and fertiliser security, these events raise a broader question: how resilient are our communities if disruptions become prolonged or structural rather than temporary?
I recently received correspondence from the Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action outlining standard preparedness measures.
These are sensible steps. However, I have concerns that current planning does not consider the possibility of longer-term constraints of energy and resource availability.
Research by Australian-born mineral economist Simon Michaux, now with the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK), suggests challenges may arise from underlying physical limits within global energy systems.
Australia invited GTK to prepare an assessment of its transition to an electric vehicle fleet.
The discussion before the Standing Committee on Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water in August 2024 concluded that completely replacing Australia’s fleet with EVs may be unrealistic.
If such assessments prove even partially correct, resilience will depend heavily on the capacity of local communities and councils to adapt.
This distinction between resilience through continuity and resilience through adaptation is the central focus of my own work.
Through a series of essays, I explore how local governments might prepare for a wider range of futures than those normally considered in policy discussions.
Resilience itself cannot be outsourced.
When disruptions occur, local authorities and communities must respond to the reality before them.
The more dependent a community is on complex systems it does not control, the more important it becomes to build local understanding and adaptive capacity before disruptions occur.
I suggest these issues deserve broader discussion within local resilience and preparedness planning.
Roy Casey
Read More: Local